Nearly Zero Energy Building is Nearly here! Are you ready?

Thursday, 7th July 2016: The Irish Green Building Council (IGBC) today called on all commercial developers to make sure that any development they are currently planning is designed to meet the Nearly Zero Energy Standard (NZEB).

The NZEB standard comes into force at the end of 2018 meaning that from that date public authorities may only purchase, lease or rent new buildings that meet the standard. All other new buildings will have to reach the same standard by 2020.

Executive Director of IGBC Pat Barry stated:“Any commercial building on the drawing board today needs to designed to meet the NZEB standard as it will only reach completion after the 2019 watershed”.

The introduction of this new standard is required under EU law.The NZEB level whilst not yet officially defined for Ireland is expected to be in the region of a 60% improvement in energy standards over the existing building regulations for commercial and non- residential properties. The current building regulations for commercial properties date back to 2008 and are now considered by the industry to be far behind good practice.

Mr. Barry continued:“There are those in Irish property development sector who may consider it clever to try and build to minimum standards right up to very last minute. However they could be looking at costly upgrades in the 2019 – 2021 period to offload the property to the much more savvy sustainability conscious investors, and multinational tenants now in the market. Our experience has shown that our members have already moved tomuch higher standards and are using BREEAM and LEED certifications as well as targeting the expected NZEB standard”.